Brock Lesnar, the UFC’s breakthrough star and heavyweight champion, has pulled out of his UFC 106 title match with Shane Carwin. The mammoth Lesnar, a mountain of a man who has to cut twenty pounds to make the UFC’s heavyweight limit of 265 pounds, has a cold he’s been unable to shake.
“He said he’s never been this sick in his life,” UFC President Dana White told Yahoo’s Kevin Iole. “He said it’s been going on for a long time.”
The fight was expected to attract more than a million fans on PPV, but a UFC insider is confident that the fight card can still attract an audience with the newly christened main event of Tito Ortiz versus Forrest Griffin. Both are former light heavyweight champions and the battle is expected to be an evenly contested exchange. Ortiz beat Griffin at UFC 59 in a razor close split decision.
Carwin was an unheralded prospect who talked his way into a title shot by lambasting Lesnar on Twitter and in interviews, including two at Heavy.com. He posed a solid challenge for the champion, offering a solid wrestling base to go along with dynamite punching power. White is scrambling to find another opponent for Carwin, but inside sources say it is more likely the match between the two men will be rescheduled for the end of the year.
“I am disappointed,” Carwin said. “I’m going to heal up and get back to training. It’s all I can do.”
Jeremy Botter contributed to this report.